Because I Love You, You Are For Real
by iwritetoemptymymind
Summary: Castiel's approach to feeling emotion for the first time leaves a lot to be desired.
1. You Let Me Know I Am No Creep

Rating: T, I think. Some bad language, probably nothing sexual, some violence.

Pairing: Dean & Castiel. Sort of. You can consider this to be unrequited love, or a deep, brothers in arms bond that neither of them really understand.

First attempt at writing for Supernatural!

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**One Shot: Because I Love You, You Are For Real**

_Castiel_

I have never felt before. It is a very recent phenomenon.

And of course, I had no feelings about my lack of feelings. You cannot miss something you have never known.

The first time it happened, I believed I was dying.

I say first time. There had been little things before this. I was beginning to learn what laughter was, a little about friendship. I could worry about the Winchester brothers; feel isolated and afraid as I became more and more distant from Heaven.

No, I mean _real _emotion. Tear your heart out and watch it bleed out on the floor, soggy and broken, emotion.

Emotion so strong, so hard, so _terrible _that to experience it is to die a little inside.

Emotion that pushes you over the brink, so you can never go back.

Emotion that changes lives. That _ends _them.

And begins ones entirely anew.

***

There had been a fight. Sam's face was bleeding, body riddled with bruises. A few days, he'd be fine.

But Dean... _Dean. _He looked as if he'd been hit by a car. His breathing came in gasps, and it took only one cursory look-over for me to tell that he had internal injuries. He required emergency medical attention.

Emergency medical attention. Ha. Internal injuries are no match for an _Angel of the_ _Lord. _

The lightest touch of my hand on his forehead, and he was healed. His skin was smooth and much too warm and my hand came away bloody. The touch lasted mere seconds, but I felt his body knit itself together beneath my fingers. His heart beat faster, stronger. Blood shrivelled itself back into his veins. Bones became whole once more. _He _became whole once more.

His head flopped back, eyes locked on mine. He gave me what I have since learned is to be called a "shit-eating grin" and said, "Well, it's about damn time, Cas."

The smile was fleeting, he was exhausted. He fell back on the bed he'd been awkwardly sitting on, almost instantly unconscious.

I was somewhat distracted.

It felt as if my chest had been ripped in two.

The flash of that human's smile had achieved what an Archangel could not. There was a gaping hole in my chest, and I could barely breathe.

I could feel myself begin to dematerialise through panic.

Dimly, I could hear Sam's voice.

"Cas? Cas, what's wrong?"

It was coloured with concern. I vaguely remember wishing I knew how to answer him.

I pulled back into my being, into myself, hundreds of miles away, thousands, maybe.

I was on a beach. It was deserted, and it was night.

I fell to my knees, my head in my hands. If I had known how to sob, I would have been doing so in earnest.

The sensations of pain and loss and devotion and joy and admiration and... love? Is this what love felt like?

These sensations, drowning me, more thoroughly than the crashing sea that spread out in front of me could ever have achieved.

The longer I lived among humans, the more I became used to the concept of "choice". That decisions had to be made, their consequences lived with. That the consequences could be Hellish. Sometimes literally – ask Dean.

It was dark and it was cold, (cold? I could feel _cold_?), and I was alone and I was not remotely equipped to deal with the terrible emotional onslaught that rained down on me.

Rain. Real rain, began to fall.

I hung my head back, let the rain fall on my face. Stared at the sky with those eyes, so blue, those eyes that had my vessel had received so many compliments on, back in the day.

_  
I wonder what Dean thinks of my eyes?_

I started, as if ambushed. Apparently, I could now be ambushed by my own mind.

Why should I care what Dean thinks of my eyes? Why should I even think of them as _mine_?

I did not know what to do. My brethren... they could not help me.

Who could?


	2. I'm Sticking Right Here

Thanks for the review!

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When Castiel returns, they do not discuss his reasons for leaving. He tells them he felt a voice calling him he could not identify, and was concerned that this could be important.

Dean does not mention that he had long believed that the only voice Castiel could hear from afar was his own.

Three months later, as they face the armies of Hell, as Castiel truly unfurls his wings on Earth for the first time since Sodom and Gomorrah, Castiel realised that he did not care that he could not categorise the feelings that he had for Dean, and to a lesser extent, Sam, or even Bobby. They stood beside him now, and the end of everything, and that was all that mattered.

As he watches as the flesh is ripped from Bobby's bones, the sacred circle around him broken, Castiel discovers the true meaning of _pain_.

When he holds Dean's lifeless body in his arms, and looks into the eyes which had once stared so intently into his own, and finds them blank, Castiel discovers the true meaning of _grief._

And after both these things, when Lucifer stands before him, bloodstained and terrible, and says, "Hello, little brother.", Castiel discovers the true meaning of _anger_.

Castiel lifts himself up from his knees, blue eyes burning with a fire that belies their colour, and grips once more his flaming sword.

He is no archangel, no Michael. But his friends are dead, and he must avenge them. This he knows as deeply and fundamentally as he knows how to breathe, that he is a warrior of God, and that all he loves in the world is gone.

So he gazes up at Lucifer, the demon wearing Sam's skin, and he smiles, because he knows Sam is dead and cannot feel what he is about to do to his tender human flesh. His soul is gone, has escaped, is somewhere were the world doesn't blaze and isn't full of the stench of rotting corpses. This is what Castiel hopes. He doubts it is true. Suspects Sam is still in there, somewhere, insane and screaming.

It is his duty to try and set him free.

"Did you know that the only thing that can kill an angel... is an angel?"

Lucifer laughs at him. Castiel smiles wider.

He lifts the sword, and swings. A flashing arc of gold. The fight's begun, and he cannot win.

_  
Here goes nothing._

Castiel goes down laughing, delirious and free. He fights like a berserker. He has nothing left, and there is nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing left.

And Castiel is, most certainly, now a man and not an angel.

When Castiel stands over Lucifer's corpse, knowing that his own death follows swiftly on the heels of his victory, he reflects that this is perhaps something that Lucifer should have considered.

Lucifer, who would never have considered a plan that involved his own demise a victory.

He does not have Castiel's ruthless pragmatism in this regard.

Sam's body lies broken before him, mortal once more. Castiel knows that by killing the demon inside of him he has truly liberated Sam Winchester. It was the only way.

Castiel sinks to his knees once more, and his dying thought is very clear and very sweet and very lucid.

_  
This one's for you, boys._

He understands love, now. Sometimes, love requires sacrifice. And Castiel loved Dean Winchester more than he has ever loved anything, even the Lord himself. It is a beautiful blasphemy, and he is not ashamed.

Castiel dies with a smile on his face and a sword in his hand and the knowledge that he did not fail his friends.

It is enough.

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Thanks for reading!


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